Not A Match: Dating Site Erases Bisexuality (You Know…Again)

Pay for your first profile. Choose a gender (man or woman), then choose a gender you want to date from the same options.

Once you’re a paid subscribing member, call match.com customer service and tell them you are a) bisexual and b) need another profile.

Once you’ve received your free second profile, fill that out too.

Voila, you’re ready to start dating on match.com! All you had to do was create a profile that ignores your identity as a whole and valid person, come out to customer service and ask them to give you something for free, and create an entire second dating profile! Just manage two separate dating accounts, and who knows, when it’s time for renewal you might just get to start at step two all over again!

Under the bulleted Age of Self-Described Realization section, bisexual people are not included.

In the press release as a whole, lesbian and gay are used a total of 31 times. The word bisexual? Six times out of 1200+ words. So when Nicole Kristal from the #StillBisexual campaign pointed out that the highlighted coming out statistics erased bi people, their response that “press releases can be limiting” sounded more like an excuse than a reason.

Not a big surprise from the dating site that has one response to a search of the help section for “bisexual”…and it is “Same Sex Dating”.

Press releases tell us the most important information to the originator. They are meant to interest, inform, and excite. Match perpetuated bierasure by highlighting only some of the coming out statistics. Nicole Kristal of #StillBisexual shared a graph which shows Match chose to omit bisexual coming out statistics from the press release.

Though the graph includes bi people, it ignores the reality that transgender and nonbinary bi, lesbian, and gay exist (and come out as LGBTQ more than once).

In the face of such erasure, twitter user @notalwaysweak suggested bi people share our #BisexualStats with @Match.

As the hours and days pass since Match declined to acknowledge our statistics as “key takeaways,” @StillBisexualcontinues to retweet our 140 character coming out stories.

And more and more bi people are answering the call to join in, including Famous Badass Bisexual Evan Rachel Wood.

The bisexual community has responded to blatant discrimination by supporting our stories and providing clear guidance to the offender.

Match, there were no excuses before—and now you’ve got everything you need to be bi-inclusive. Our message is clear:

SB Swartz is an author covering inclusive wellness, queer family, and reflections of our world as seen on tv. She’s a proud member of the #StillBisexual campaign, working to dispel the myth that bisexuals don't stay bisexual. Her home is filled with Battlestar Galactica posters, her husband, and their troublemaking cats. She adores them all.

Follow SB Swartz on Twitter @sbswrites and see more of her work @sbswartz on medium.